pythonsignal-processinglibrosaaudio-analysis

What does librosa.load return?


I'm working with the librosa library, and I would like to know what information is returned by the librosa.load function when I read a audio (.wav) file. Is it the instantaneous sound pressure in pa, or the just the instantaneous amplitude of the sound signal with no units?


Solution

  • To confirm the previous answer, librosa.load returns a time series that in librosa glossary is defined as:

    "time series: Typically an audio signal, denoted by y, and represented as a one-dimensional numpy.ndarray of floating-point values. y[t] corresponds to the amplitude of the waveform at sample t."

    The amplitude is usually measured as a function of the change in pressure around the microphone or receiver device that originally picked up the audio. (See more here).